On Wednesday my oldest turned twelve. I could fill up a post on how puberty is making my life a living hell or remember all the times she was a cute little baby. But for twelve years she has filled up my life with joy and wonder, I wouldn’t change her for anything. For her brithday I am going to bore you with twelve facts about my daughter that you may not know;

1. She was born in an Army hospital Wurzburg Germany. Because of this she has the most beautiful consulate birth certificate that is the biggest birth certificate I have ever seen, seriously this thing is like 11 x 17. It really is a work of art.

2. When she was 2 weeks old she got to go on a tour of Cheimsee, Salzburg and Venice. My mom had come for the birth and we couldn’t travel while I was in my last trimester, so afterwards we got in the car and took a tour of the south part of Europe. In fact, on the ferry ride over to Venice a lot of Italian Grandma’s fussed at me for not making her warm enough. I think they were fussing, I don’t speak Italian.  Also, strollers don’t work when walking around Venice. Those bridges don’t have ramps, yo.

3. We didn’t have girls name. We already had a boy’s name (Trace) but that wouldn’t fit for a girl, plus we needed to save it for when we DID have a boy (26 months later). Her name was almost (bourgeois gasp!) Katlin. John and I both hated it, but we couldn’t come up with anything better. While reading a magazine I came across the name Cheyenne. BOOM! Name problem solved.

4. She LOVED Blue’s Clues as a kid, the one with the original Joe, not the one with his ‘brother’ or ‘cousin’ or whatever the new guy’s name was.

5. She was eating spaghetti once and sneezed so hard that spaghetti came out her nose. Good stuff.

6. She likes to fish with my mom’s partner (we call her Nana Kat). She can clean a fish better than I can, and by ‘better than I can’ I mean, I’m not touching that stuff.

7. She loves horror movies, which is proof that she was switched at birth. I HATE horror movies, but she’s all “Can I watch Saw?” and I’m all “Sure, when you move out and get your own TV.”

8. She LOVES animals and, of course, this means I have to too. We currently own 3 cats, one dog, and 4 hermit crabs. At the height of our petzaplooza we had 2 dogs, 4 cats, and a hamster. Even now, I can’t go to PetSmart with her. She wants to be a vet.

9. She loves to write and draw, and isn’t half bad at drawing Anime. She once drew a masterpiece on her brother’s face in marker, I have the picture to prove it. It was from her ‘lines on a face’ period.

10. I put her on a plane to go out West at the age of 9 (maybe it was 8). She’s a great flyer. She loves to go out there and visit my sister and my mom.

11. She can make me smile, feel stabby, proud, and frustrated all at the same time. Just so you know, that’s real talent.

12. No matter what she does or where she goes, she’ll be awesome, wonderful, independent, and successful.